Great update! Pretty ironic that the Russians of all people would underestimate an enemy nation's size, remoteness, and harsh environmental conditions but I'm guessing they never considered having to be on the receiving end of those issues.
The Russians did not expect to get as far as they did. That was part of the problem. The other part is that the Russian military, though better than it was in 1906-08, is not really all that good at the whole planning and management thing. I envision STAVKA in thiose months basically a madhouse with staff officers hanging on telephones "They are WHERE?! How did that happen?! Yes, attack! Attack! No, what, how am I supposed to find you 20,000 tonnes of gasoline, there ARE NO TRAINS! Figure out something! Ask the air force!"
A few questions:
How much does the Iranian state emphasize Shia identity compared to Iranian nationalism? It seems that based on the update the government of the Shah is at least interested in the Shia of Iraq leaving the Ottoman Empire, is there support for splitting off the Kurds as well? Also I imagine the Shah coveting majority Shia areas in Iraq is going to make the other British protectorates in the Gulf like Kuwait and Bahrain nervous, might damage Britain's relationship with either Iran or the Gulf States.
The Shah styles himself protector of Shia Islam in much the same way that the Czar considers hjimself protector of Orthodox christians (whether they like it or not). So Shia is a very important part of official Persian identity. It's not as central as it is IOTL obviously, but the Persian government works closely with the clergy and relies on their backing to legitimse it. It also generously supports Shia institutions abroad, so these ambitions are not empty. but in practice their power projection capability is limited and the actual sphere of influence includes more Sunni areas in Turkestan than Shia ones in the Gulf. So much of this is talk, political grandstanding, no actual power.
It is a minor headache for British protectorates in the Gulf, but they are fairly sure they can handle it. There's water inbetween. And the British embassy in Tehran holds the Shah's reins reasonably closely. It's not quite like the Native states of India, but it's also not like the Ottoman Empire, which has an actual policy it can independently determine. So as of now, Persia is not high on the klist of priorities. That will change once population growth and modernisation hit critical mass...
How is France balancing their support of Arabs in the Levant with their suppression of Arab nationalism in the Maghreb? Are they mostly encouraging Christian sectarianism among the Arabs in Syria and Lebanon, and is this leading to heightened sectarian violence in the region (like Lebanon in the 70s/80s)?
The European powers are still colonial in the pre-WWI mode. So there is really nothing to reconcile as far as the french are concerned. The Arabs of the Levant are suffering under the yoke of a benighted oriental despot and would be better off determining their own fate. The Arabs of North Africa are enjoying the civilisational benefits of enlightened government and will, in time, understand that the best thing for them is to become Frenchmen.
But altogether, French support for Arab nationalism is a very minor distraction, not a major policy point or actual strategy. French intelligence is very active, taking its cues from von der Goltz's pre-war IIIb, and they are reasonably good at it, though the government will not allow any of their operations to grow big enough to have serious repercussions. In a way, they just like discomforting their rivals. They armed and aided Irish insurgents, Mexican revolutionaries, various Balkan nationalist factions, Chinese warlords, Burmese mountain tribes, Bengali Indian nationalists, Korean revolutionaries, just about anyone who was willing to be sand in the gears of British or German power.
And of course Arab nationalism isn't a very powerful thing (at this point). Arab identity is, and the French are prone to mistaking one for the other. In the 1910s and 1920s, following the debacle of the pan-Turkish project, there was a good deal of anti-Turkish resentment in the Arab population and some unrest, with local potentates trying to expand their power base and even mulling the possibility of independence. They approached Britain and France, but neither was willing to risk the confrontation with Germany, so that kind of burned itself out. These things essentially functioned in tribal contexts. The people the French are in touch with are urban, westernised Arabs, many of them are Christians, and they have dreams of an ethnic nation state run along Republican lines. Their ambitions are grand, but their traction is very limited. Most Arabic speakers live in rural areas, and they would probably not understand what these people are even talking about. There was urban rioting and limited terror campaigns, but the movement is not a significant threat to a functioning or even semi-functioning Ottoman state.
The trajectory I see the Ottoman Empire on is leading to less sectarian violence, actually. By using political religion as a principle to counter ethnic nationalism, the Ottoman government is encouraging the religious establishment into government at broadly the time it begins succeeding at building a real modern state apparatus.
So wait russia invaded ottomans only after the fall of mosul did the ottomans declare war?
Russia spent years encroaching on Ottoman sovereignty. This is not the post-WWI modernised state with militarised borders, it's still an Empire with blurry edges and subject to all kinds of outside impositions. So this is nothing new in principle. The French and British have consular jurisdiction and treaty areas, and France even has cklient populations that their government 'protects' inside the Empire. China is looking at very similar arrangements, and the main difference to Persia is that the Ottoman state managed to play off its various 'protectors' against each other. The Russians were reasserting their old claims, and while that caused some headaches in many parts, most European states were basically ready to shrug and say 'fair enough'. That is why there were already treaty forces on the ground across most of what was once the Russian Caucasus.
Publicly, Russia was talking about protecting the Orthodox Christians and keeping the peace, but they let it be known through diplomatic channels that their goal was to force the Ottomans into friendly neutrality so as to secure their southern flank and interrupt the German oil supply in the event of a war. This is a lie, but there is no way to know this for sure. At this point, an Ottoman Chamberlain could come back with 'peace' and be hailed for it.
Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire are all coming out of their respective crises (Germany's economic slump and traumatic regime change, AH dealing with the fallout from the 1937 Ausgleich, and the OE with the aftermath of the Balkan War). So the question in Istanbul is effectively whether to risk war (there is no expectation of help from Berlin in the short term) or to take the Russians at their word and negotiate territorial cessions. It took two months for the decision to be made and another two for the preparations to be laid until they made the formal declaration. That's not a very long time, realistically.
Also why all of a suddan no one loyal to the empire the arabs never turned on the ottomans during the peak of the cup and kurds were fine, all of a suddan arabs, and kurds are like fuck the empire.
No, they are not. That is where the Russians' ambitious plans fell down. Kurdish nationalism is a minority faction and their collaboration with the Russians paid no dividends, so they lost even a lot of opportunistic turncoats. Kurdistan is a hotbed of anti-Russian guerilla activity, and the part of Mesopotamia they moved into isn't much better. The majority of the Arab population hasn't seen any Russian soldiers at all, and those wo have were not impressed. In fact, the war is one of the key factors in creating an imperial identity. Arabs, Turks and Kurds fought together in the defense of Salonika, and those troops will become the cadre for the war against the Russians. And in a perverse way, the massive dislocation of that experience will erase a lot of ancient rivalries. Shia arabs might resent the Kurds for being smelly boors, the Turks for being petty tyrants, the Sunni Arabs for being wrong and the Persians for being arrogant bastards, but in the end, they've known these people forever and know how to get along with them. The Russians are a whole new shitshow.
Yeah sorry but legit i need explanation on how turkish nationalism/ pan-turkic ideology is even a thing anymore after this war if the empire is that fucked. How has political islam or ottomanisn not destroyed turkish nationalism. It took six days to destroy pan-arabism. Yet getting defeated by italy, greece and Bulgaria, then smashed by russia, and then getting smashed by russia again and not even fight back, and lose support of everyone inside the empire, yet pan-turkish ideology remains relevant and major political power is unrealistic to say the least. The turks in this world seem even nationalists than in otl.
Pan-Turkism is dead, has been since the failure of the project in the 1910s when Persia made itself the protector of Turkestan. Turkish nationalism still exists - it is all but impossible to kill ethnic nationalism in the 20th century - but it is not the dominant state ideology. To the extent that there is a state ideology, it is Ottomanism, though a slightly different kind influenced by the way that the new multi-ethnic states of the German sphere are supposed to function. It doesn't work in real application, but it is close enough to function.
By and large, the turks consider themselves the Staatsvolk of the Empire and since they are the majority in its most modern, most productive core territories, it does feel that way. But the system allows for the integration of people on the basis of religion (Sunni Muslim Arabs, Kurds, Azeris), language (Shia and Christian Arabs, Palestinan Jews), and traditional loyalties (Druze, Levantines). The system by and large works, though it is vulnerable to shocks and in need of continuous active re-rigging. And it has withstood the failure of the 'Turan' venture, the unrest of the 1920s, and continual Russian and Persian meddling. Part of its strength is that it relies on a high degree of independent local government in its periphery. That makes it vulnerable to local defection when push comes to shove, but it also makes it flexible. There are always alternative channels, alternative forms of integration. And modern government is spreading out from the core, so the state is getting stronger now, not weaker as it had before.
Surely someone should be like we alienated the empire so badly maybe we would stop this nationalism, especially when turks don't make up majority's of the empire. Or is the entire ottomans politicial elite like the serb leadership during the breakup of Yugoslavia, and every turk a greywolf. No ideology can survive 50 years of big defeats and failure so how does it remain relevant? Like come on at point all of the middle east should revolt for egyptian rule due to how bad it is now. Egypt beat the shit out of the ottomans, only arab power can rally them now. Also why haven't the islamists not just take power after all there are more muslims than nationalist turks. No nationalist ideology can suffer this amount of defeats and survive.
Btw great update but come on turkish nationalism and pan-turanism cannot survive this thats asb.
They didn't. Not as governing ideologies. That is really the big difference: The OE is a very traditional place and reform comes much more slowly than it did to the Republic ITTL. But it is also a state that is hardening its control, and simply by means of population growth and infrastructure development it is becoming bigger.
The best historical analogy here is IOTL China. The Empire is modernising at the core, but it still relies on traditional power structures in the periphery. It's continually vulnerable to outside interference, but getting better at opposing it. A modern army can still dominate its territory, but it can no longer simply rely on the population being cowed. The Russians are about to learn that it's easier grabbing Ottoman land than keeping it.
